So, it occurred to me that the reason I'm struggling to produce two chapters in a week is that the chapters have pretty much doubled in length since the beginning of the story. Sigh... silly me! Anyway, when I was writing this chapter, it came to a happy little ending back at the length of the opening chapters, so I thought, why not? Let's put it out there. I hope you like it!

Chapter 20

"Son-of-a-bitch."

Dean lost his grip on the wrench again. It fell, clattering and ringing on the newly-laid concrete foundation. He bent down, his thick coat and all the layers underneath bunching up at his waist. His chunky, glove-clad fingers scraped uselessly against the ground, flicking the tool further away, and he couldn't get a hold of the damn thing until he pinned it down with one hand and pincered it tight with the other.

"Gotcha."

Dean straightened up, groaning at the ache in his ribs, which he wouldn't have done if Cas had been around. But Cas was inside, because it was way too cold for digging and way too cold for planting - and actually it was also too cold for Dean to be working outside, but he was stubborn.

The bolt needed another few turns to make it secure. He tightened it up successfully this time and moved onto the next one. Baby would have her new home, fucking freezing cold weather notwithstanding.

January had started off mild. The snow had melted, the ground thawed, and Dean had been happy to start work on the garage, getting the ground levelled and the concrete laid in a couple of days. But then the temperature had plummeted again and even though Dean was determined to carry on with the work, he was not having a good time. The metal framework was taking shape, though - slowly but surely, with the emphasis on the slowly.

Dean moved onto the next bolt, and from his new position he could see into the kitchen. Dark clouds had covered the sky again and the warm yellow light streaming out into the cold, grey day was like a dancing lure to a grouchy old carp. He'd get a bit more done before lunch, though.

Cas appeared briefly, flitting from one side of the kitchen to the other. Dean positioned the wrench around the bolt but then paused, and was rewarded by another glimpse of Cas, a pack of butter in his hand, moving behind the table with a rhythmic shimmy, his mouth open in song. He disappeared again. Dean stayed very still, listening, and was rewarded with a snatch of music on the icy breeze. What was it? He couldn't tell.

His angel appeared in the window again, this time close to the glass, his head bowed - doing some washing up. Cas preferred hand washing over the dishwasher.

"I like the bubbles, Dean," he'd said. "And the rubber gloves and the simple act of making dirty things clean, one item at a time." The gloves had to be yellow to match the kitchen. He refused to wear the pink ones.

Cas suddenly flung up one arm and then brought it down diagonally. Up and down, up and down, his mouth moving in time.

Dean grinned. They'd been talking about different types of music the previous night and for some reason Dean had decided to show Cas his John Travolta impression, which had led to an impromptu kitchen disco. Cas proved to have a good sense of rhythm and maybe just a bit too much enthusiasm - they'd be needing a new coffee pot.

He clapped, spun out of view and then spun back again.

"Saturday night fever," muttered Dean. "He's got it bad."

Cas settled to the washing up again, his bowed head bobbing from side to side. And Dean tightened up the bolt, then moved along the frame and did another one, his gaze flicking to the square of yellow light every so often.

Not long ago - just a couple of months, really - they'd had to keep each other in sight more or less all the time. Dean had needed to be able to see Cas and Cas had needed to be able to see Dean. Neither had completely trusted that the other was real, that this wasn't some kind of taunting, tempting dream, that they wouldn't suddenly be jolted awake to loneliness and grief.

Things were easier now, most of the time. Habit and time and experience had shown them that this was real, they were here, building a new life together. They both believed it - most of the time.

Dean tightened another bolt - quick, sharp, firm movements of his whole arm, making the chunky joint secure, building a framework for the metal cladding. He tightened it until the wrench wouldn't budge so much as a fraction of a millimetre, then pulled it off the bolt and winced, flexing his shoulder, easing the stiff muscles out.

"Dean!" Cas was standing on the porch, waving. "Lunch!"

Dean waved back. "I'll be in in a minute."

Cas disappeared back inside - into the warm. Dean shivered. He'd been out long enough for now. A bite to eat, a quick warm up and he'd be good to go again, though.

He put away his tools and headed inside.

Cas had made soup and he'd blended it up so that Dean had no idea what was in it, which worked out well, because it was probably some kind of evil vegetables that Dean would sooner exorcise than eat. There was fresh, homemade bread too - the soft, white type with no brown bits or seeds in. His angel was sneaking veg into him - but he wouldn't push his luck and force the bread issue at the same time.

Dean tore off a chunk of the delicious white bread and dipped it in his soup, where it went satisfyingly mushy. "Mmm. Nice." His fingers and toes were at the tingly stage of returning warmth even if his lungs still felt scoured by the cold.

"Good," said Cas, absently. He was dunking his bread with one hand and flicking at the laptop with the other, his eyes darting left and right at the display as something scrolled past - which was a recipe for disaster as far as the potential soup-technology combo was concerned.

"Watcha doin'?"

For a moment Cas didn't respond, his eyes carrying on their left-right scan. Then he hummed a pleased hum and looked at Dean.

"I'm planning a surprise birthday party. For you."

Dean's second chunk of bread hovered above his soup. "Uh, yeah… Cas?"

"Hmm?" His eyes were back on the laptop.

Why did stuff like this wake up that caramelly-soft feeling deep in Dean's insides? The one that rose up from his gut, spread out in his chest and then oozed higher like a wave of warm honey, making his throat ache? And then, more often than not, it spilled over into a goofy grin (he couldn't see his own face, obviously, but it always felt goofy) and then even into a hot prickling at the corners of his eyes.

It got as far as his throat this time, but there was a goofy grin hovering in the wings.

"So… I think you just fucked up the element of surprise there, angel."

"What?" Those wide-open sky-blues trained themselves on Dean. Then Cas smiled. "Oh, I see. No, it's not that kind of surprise."

"Well, it's kinda either a surprise or it's not. These things are usually pretty black-and-white." Dean pulled a crazy face. "See - that's surprise." He let his features go into deadpan mode. "Whereas that's not."

Cas pushed the laptop to one side. He drew his bowl of soup in front of him and began pulling off chunks of bread and dropping them in. "I discussed that aspect of my plan with Sam. At length."

"Well, yeah - discussions with Sammy often go that way. Is this a joint surprise party plan, then?"

Cas shook his head. "Actually, no. Sam phoned to find out if I was planning anything. I said I was."

"A surprise party."

"Indeed."

"So…"

Cas's bowl was full of bread. He picked up his spoon and squashed the bread down so that the soft whiteness slowly turned orange. "I have a problem with the whole surprise scenario," he said. "It seems to me that the pretence of there being no celebrations planned causes a greater amount of hurt feelings in the recipient than is outweighed by the pleasure of the eventual surprise."

"Okay. You mean the birthday boy - aka myself - gets so pissed off that he ends up in a 'it's my party and I'll cry if I want to.' kind of mood."

"I would hate to make you cry, Dean," said Cas, earnestly. He put a comforting hand on Dean's forearm and stroked it up and down.

Dean plucked Cas's hand off his arm, squeezed it in his own and held onto it. "That's okay, angel. You won't. And it's a line from a song - It's my party and I'll cry if I want to."

"Oh. Well, even so, I might make you cry if I pretended I had forgotten your birthday, Dean. And if everyone else pretended the same." His free hand covered Dean's, enfolding it in warmth. "I don't understand why it's considered acceptable to treat people that way. It's not… not kind."

Dean's lips trembled toward a goofy grin. His mighty avenging angel the size of the Chrysler building had diminished in size and power and didn't have even a tiny smidge of grace to his name. Now he was just a man. But he was a man concerned with things such as kindness. And that was better than being a distant celestial being. Kindness and softness and compassion - those were the things that made Cas a real angel, in Dean's opinion.

His eyes were prickling now, dammit.

"I love you, Cas."

"I love you too, Dean." He gave Dean's hand another brisk squeeze and then released it. "And so I want you to have a nice time anticipating your surprise party, and then there will be the big reveal, which you will enjoy too, and then I hope what I'm planning will be fun." He glanced at the laptop and angled it further away from Dean. "A lot of fun."

"Okay." Dean slowly dunked his chunk of bread. His lips twitched and a small kernel of excitement flared to life somewhere in his chest. Or in his head. Anyway, it didn't matter where it was - it was nice.

"It's working, isn't it?" Cas's spoon was loaded up with squishy, soupy bread. His mouth engulfed the whole thing at the same time as he smiled so that soup leaked out the corners. He was really getting with the Dean Winchester approach to eating.

"Yeah. Not-surprise surprises are a good idea. Noprises. Nurprises."

Sam would have rolled his eyes. Cas giggled and a fragment of soupy bread landed on the table. Dean ignored it.

He continued to dunk his bread and slurp up the resulting mushiness. He was going to have a party. A proper birthday party. With all his friends? Probably. Cas wasn't going to do anything half-assed.

Where would it be? Here, at the newly-named Sunrise? Or at the bunker, maybe, where there was more room. Or… somewhere else.

What had Cas been researching online? Cake recipes. Party themes. How to make massive quantities of bacon double cheeseburgers and fries. Presents.

Dean couldn't think of anything he wanted as a birthday present. He had everything he wanted, except Baby's garage, and that was in hand. But, anyway, wanting stuff wasn't the point. He'd get colourfully-wrapped gifts and the paper would rustle and he could squeeze them and shake them and try to guess what was inside. He'd had gifts at Christmas, of course, but birthdays were different.

A few times, when he was a kid, Dean had stuck around in one place long enough to be invited to birthday parties. Once, when he was about eight, he'd been to some kid's house - Matt? Mark? Something beginning with M. Anyway, there'd been games and an entertainer and music and party food and a Batman cake. Dean had been in heaven. Obviously, there'd been a few dicey moments, because he'd had to sneak Sammy in through the back gate - couldn't leave the little squirt on his own, could he? But other than that, it'd been awesome.

The kid - let's say Matt - had been one of these 'too cool for school' types and had had a massive fit at his Mom and Dad because they hadn't got the latest video game for all his friends to play and the party games were 'so lame! I'm not a little kid any more!' But Dean hadn't cared about stupid Matt or his stupid friends who had to pretend they were bored because the popular Matt was bored. Dean couldn't have given a flying fig (he was only eight) for being cool when there were prizes to be won and food to be eaten - he'd never had a birthday party (that he remembered) and rarely even got a single present, unless he happened to be at Bobby's at the time, because Uncle Bobby didn't forget stuff like that.

It had been an awesome day.

And now he was going to have another party. And, because Cas was one clever angel and was planning a nurprise party, Dean got to spend all the time between now and then, thinking about it, with that little, hoppy, happy, party feeling inside himself.

He scraped the bottom of his bowl, where drowned bits of bread had turned to a kind of orangey-red porridge. It reminded him a bit of his Mom's tomato rice soup. Would Cas be offended by that? He'd made his soup from scratch. Mom opened a can and threw in a couple of grains of rice.

Dean scraped up the last spoonful. "It's good, Cas. Real good." He slurped and swallowed. "What food are we gonna have? At the party?"

Cas's spoon hovered above his bowl, loaded with bready orange mush. He put it back in the bowl, balancing it carefully. "How much of a 'nurprise' do you want, Dean?"

He'd actually put his spoon down just so he could do air quotes.

"Uh…" Did he want Cas to tell him? To give him details, so he could picture what his party would be like? Dean sat back in his chair, arms crossed and stared at the range for a moment - and, hey, was that a cake in there? Awesome. Anyway, the party… "You know, what I think I really want is to pester you for details a couple dozen times a day, and for you to look all smug and knowing and cute but give me nothing. I think that'd be the most fun. Would that piss you off?"

"No, Dean, that would not piss me off."

That in itself was cute - Cas saying 'piss me off' in that precise, 'what the hell is slang anyway?' kind of voice. That'd never get old.

"Let's do that, then." Dean rubbed his hands together. "So… I'm thinking maybe… a pool party? You're hiring the whole place - and there's chutes and a wave machine. And a bar. And those inflatable flamingos. And fake palm trees and shit."

Cas smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled up. And when he smiled like that his eyes got all twinkly and Dean had stupid thoughts about little twinkling stars and how maybe the starlight got in his angel's eyes from flying up there in the night sky - which was very, very mushy and not the kind of thing a guy like him could ever say out loud.

Except, maybe he could, because when they were in bed all cosy and soft together, after they'd done stuff, it wasn't that hard to say things he wouldn't normally say. Like he'd lost a couple of layers of whatever crap he usually hid behind. So he'd keep that line in reserve. Just in case.

"Okay, I know - Sammy's clearing away all the furniture in the bunker so you can get a giant bouncy house in? Am I right? I'm right, aren't I?"

Another knowing smile. More twinkling.

And here it came - the full-on goofy grin, the prickling eyes and yup, the blurry vision. Dean blinked so that he could see his angel clearly. "You got this one exactly right, Cas." He leant over the table and smushed their lips together and pushed his fingers into the tumbled, messy hair while he was at it. "Exactly right."

Cas leant up and kissed him back. "Nurprises are my specialty."

That was fun.

Thank you all very much for reading and for your lovely comments! I really appreciate them!